Tag Archives: Israel attacks Gaza

Back in the 1960s when Hollywood was making a number of movies based on biblical stories, they came out with Orson Welles as King Saul in “David and Goliath.” I was a little kid when I saw this movie, but I remember identifying with little David who yes, played beautifully on his harp, and used his slingshot with divine accuracy. I also remember the monster Goliath – he was huge and ugly and represented the Philistines, our enemies. I cheered in my head and my heart for David to defeat the monster and he did, so that I could feel the good guys won and God was indeed on our side, the side of the Israelites.

Like any idealistic Jew, though not religious, I went to Israel to work on a kibbutz in the summer of 1971. I was in the south, near Eilat and the border with Jordan. Young and naïve, I was friendly with everyone I met — the Sabras of Israel, the Christians in Bethlehem, and Arabs in Gaza. In Gaza? Yes, I was there with a British fellow from the kibbutz who was picking up some cane furniture he had ordered. I wasn’t supposed to be there, of course, and when an Israeli army jeep spotted me, my friend was in big trouble. “Get her out of here immediately!” was the order he shouted. I guess it had something to do with my appearance and that there were no other women on the street at that time. Like I said, I was friendly with everyone – my parents did not raise me to hate, they raised me to love. The Israelis tried to make me feel guilty for not staying in Israel, but I kept saying, “I’m an American, my home is the U.S.A.” Still, I certainly supported Israel and every person I met there had lost someone, a family member or a friend in a war and I felt very sad for them and angry that they lived with the constant threat of attack. Continue reading When David Became Goliath: Lee-Alison Sibley→

Statement from Bir Zeit University Institute of Women’s Studies, Palestine

Gaza Under Attack

As we write this statement, 25 days after the brutal incursion on Gaza, over a thousand and four hundred of innocent civilian women, men and children have been butchered by Israel’s war machine and much more are threatened to be killed. The call for raping Palestinian women by the so-called “Bar-Illan University Arabic Literature Professor” teaches us, once again, that Israeli “scholars” and “academic institutions” are an organic and integral part of the Zionist colonial project. Also, the parliament member, who happens to be a woman, advocates the killing of all Palestinian women, a Rabbi calls for mass murder of Palestinians while taking their foreskins as trophies, in addition to the display of many rape references on banners and images (head covered woman from the top while indecent from the waist down with a very provocative statement below) in their neighborhoods that promotes a rape culture and misogyny at the least. Continue reading Urgent Call: Bir Zeit University Institute of Women’s Studies, Palestine→